This past April, SimpleK12’s Director of Sales & Marketing, Lisa Greathouse, gave a killer presentation at our Subscription Summit on how this professional development site for teachers optimizes member engagement. We thought the information was so valuable, we wanted to re-publish it here, along with new information on the site’s multi-channel marketing strategy for both individual and group subscription sales. We caught up with Greathouse and CEO Michael Werner to get the site’s inside tips on using gamification and social media strategically (there’s a YouTube loophole you don’t want to miss out on!), as well as how Webinar non-attendees are the site’s best leads!
Company Profile
Founded: 2009 as a customized learning portal for schools and districts, starting selling subscriptions in 2011.
Parent company: InfoSource, founded 1983, originally sold CD-ROM-based professional training for multiple industries before narrowing focus to professional development for teachers.
No. of Publications: 1
Employees: 26 both full-time and part-time. Contract with 100-125 to subject matter experts.
Business Model: Hybrid — subscriptions, one-offs, advertising.
Subscribers: 360,000 total (free + paid); 80,000 premium (80% from site license sales).
Location: Oviedo, FL
Website: www.simplek12.com
Target Market
SimpleK12 provides professional development for kindergarten through 12th grade teachers. Because it sells individual and group subscriptions, its target market consists of both teachers and administrators (or school librarians) at schools across the US. The bulk of their subscribers are in public schools.
Content
SimpleK12 provides extensive professional development resources for teachers in the form of Webinars, on-demand recordings, downloadable eBooks and documents, links to resources around the Web and training modules. The site also has extensive forums, user-generated content, and its own currency called Bunny Bucks that members earn by staying active and contributing to the community.
There is no clear paywall between free and paid resources, although they are marked with different color buttons on the homepage once a free member logs in (blue = free, gold = paid). Most of the Webinars are for paying members only, though the site also holds a few free ones a few times a year. User-generated content is always free since it’s not vetted by SimpleK12. All of the premium resources are vetted. Email registration is required for free users.
However, only paying subscribers can receive tracking and certification of continuing education units (CEUs) from the site. Since every state requires CEUs for a teacher to keep their certification, and every state, district, and sometimes school has a different system, SimpleK12 provides the tracking and reporting for course completions that educators then turn in to their local educational body for approval. SimpleK12 is tapping into a need for a profession that while not known for their salaries, are known for the passion they display for their jobs. Many of their subscribers are able to get “pre-approved” by their administrators to earn CEU credits through the site. Site license subscribers allow administrators to track the CEU credits of all their teachers under the site license.
Thus, the site is pay-worthy not because the content isn’t available elsewhere, but because it takes teachers and administrators days, weeks, or even months to put it together, often at a higher expense (such as travel for Continuing Education conferences). For some, the CEU credits make it pay-worthy, but Greathouse says most subscribers are interested in the training regardless of the credit.
SimpleK12 adds content daily, although webinars — by far their most popular content format — are added every week and usually last a half hour. The site has a roster of about 100-125 topical experts for the Webinar that are vetted. (The site used to do Web-based training, hence the archived training modules, but found that Webinars were both more popular and more cost-effective.) SimpleK12 vets many of its speakers by attending conferences and looking for headline speakers, popular sessions and attendee buzz. It also looks for award-winning teachers. (The site views educational conferences as their chief competitor.)
New experts are often asked to submit samples of their work and reviews/feedback from people they’ve presented to. If they’re approved, SimpleK12 will start them with one Webinar.
Experts are paid a $50 honorarium, although Greathouse said many are used to speaking for free at conferences and passionate enough about their work that they’re surprised by this. They also get free bunny slippers (the site’s signature one-off product and member engagement tool since it promotes “Professional Development in your PJs”).
NOTE: This may seem like a cute idea, but the whole bunny slipper draw is worth examining. Often, B2B marketers assume only B2C sites can get away with such fun schwag. But SimpleK12 is a B2B site and centered on professional development. In addition, bunny slippers really have nothing to do with teaching. But by not thinking literally and having fun, SimpleK12 created a memorable identity and brand and a fun way for the members to interact with the site. Greathouse mentioned that the staff will often show up at conferences in bunny slippers and get fans coming up to them to sing their praises.
Revenues
SimpleK12 generates $4 million a year in revenues.
The bulk of those revenues (about 80%) are from site license sales. Individual subscriptions account for around $1 million, and sponsorships bring in around $300,000.
The site charges $357 a year for an individual annual subscription. It’s currently testing monthly and quarterly plans with a handful of subscribers, and waiting to see how long before they fall off making those plans public.
The site licenses can be sold on two levels and multiple tiers. The levesl are the school level or the district level. For school-based site licenses, pricing is determined by how many teachers will use the site. On the district level, pricing is based on how many schools are in the district. Tiers are based on the number of seats, i.e., 24, 40, 100, 150, etc. “The tiers work for us versus a specific number because often staff will join the district throughout the school year and the clients prefer to have a buffer to add in extra folks,” Greathouse says.
The range for site license sales is between $3,600 and $100,000, with the typical site license around $5,000 to $10,000. Simple K12 will also offer two-year discounts for site licenses, so that a one-year license for $6,000 is $10,500 for two.
None of the subscription plans are on auto-renewal. Site license sales are paid either through invoice or credit card (there’s a 1% processing fee for credit card payment; we recommend not altering price according to method of payment).
Marketing Tactics
SimpleK12 takes a multi-channel approach to marketing that is highly effective, in spite of the fact that the site is weak on SEO. This is because, as a B2B company, InfoSource already knew decision-makers in their space, and SimpleK12 is able to use email marketing and affiliates, social media, conferences and formal word-of-mouth marketing to leverage those relationships.
Email Marketing + Affiliates
SimpleK12 has two primary ways of acquiring email subscribers:
- Itsr own lists developed from telesales list from when Infosource sed to sell CD-ROMs with professional development courses, as well as on-site email registration by free users.
- Emails captured through affiliate partners. If someone subscribes through an affiliate, SimpleK12 will pay the affiliate 40% of the first subscription or whatever the customer buys. They don’t give any cut to affiliates if prospects turn into site license sales, mainly because “that’s too hard to track,” says Werner.
Social Media
SimpleK12 has a passionate following on Twitter and Facebook, which drives traffic to the site and the site’s blog. However, Twitter serves more as a market research tool than a marketing channel according to both Werner and Greathouse, who say its great for listening in on your audience not pitching sales. To that point, SimpleK12 hosts EdChat every Monday and Wednesday, which is essentially a focus group, letting SimpleK12 get into the heads of their target market. “Before Twitter, you’d pay tens of thousands of dollars for this,” Greathouse said.
SimpleK12 also has a strong presence on YouTube. The site’s YouTube videos host ads that link to landing pages for SimpleK12. Greathouse spoke at the April 2013 Subscription Site Summit about how this was possible by underbidding on nonsense terms, and was generous enough to provide written instructions to attendees. You can download the instructions here.
Industry Conferences
Greathouse and her team will often attend teach conferences across the country, making their presence known by walking around in bunny slippers. This exposure allows them to both recruit new speakers/topical experts for Webinars as well as new members. (They also alert members that they’ll be attending events beforehand through on-site display ads, such as the one to the right.)
There are a lot of small regional conferences for teachers at which SimpleK12 will give away free 3-month trials. They’ll also provide door prizes at staff development events. And recently a new movement called Ed Camp will informally gather teachers on a Saturday to put on a conference. SImpleK12 is in contact with many of the hundreds around the country and will give away trials and schwag at these too.
Formal Word-of-Mouth
Individual subscribers can often be the site’s strongest marketers, so SimpleK12 has created an Ambassador program for these teachers to advocate for the site with principals and school administrators. Beyond the simple email referral tactic, SimpleK12 will provide Ambassadors with discount codes, info to share with principals and teachers, or graphics and text for teachers to put up on a blog. SimpleK12 will also write emails Ambassadors can forward, and gives them badges on their profiles. The program is so successful that the site will cue a special landing page once a new member registers asking if s/he wants to become an Ambassador:
Other Marketing Tactics
SimpleK12 is ramping up its SEO efforts this year and testing PPC. The site does not use postal direct mail.
Site License Sales
Beyond its Ambassador program, SimpleK12 generates leads for site license sales in a number of unique ways.
One way is through the site’s many Webinars. While each Webinar gets about 2,000 registrants and 40% attendance, Greathouse says that some of their best leads are from non-attendees. After the Webinar, the sales team will break down non-attendees into tier 1 and tier 2 decision-makers. The tier 1 decision-makers are usually school administrators. Greathouse says the staff will then call the tier 1 prospects on the phone and say “Hi, we saw you signed up for our Webinar but missed it. So we’d like to extend a free pass for you to watch it, as well as a scheduled appointment to tour the site.”
The site also started data mining, looking for schools or districts with multiple subscribers. The sales staff will then make an offer to the administrator.
Administrators are also the recipients of email campaigns for site license sales. These emails will focus on popular topics for continuing education, such as iPads, Common Core, and classroom management.
The site’s sales team of seven closes all sales, usually by sending them a quote. The school will then issue a purchase order, and SimpleK12 will reply with an invoice to be paid in net 30 days. They will often give access to schools once they get a purchase order and before payment. “We’ve never been shafted by a school district,” Werner says.
Conversion Tactics
SimpleK12’s conversion tactics for individual subscribers are just as varied as the ones they use for site license sales, albeit different.
The site requires email registration to view free content. By doing so, free members get a profile, highlighting their information and a couple of introductory badges to get them engaged right away with the site:
The site will give away a lot of resources, such as e-books, reports, Webinars and training modules, although all of the resources listed on the homepage are paid (as one-off sales) except for the site’s “Getting Started” slide presentation for new members.
The site also offers free “bulk” subscriptions to certain school districts that it knows will never buy from them because of budget constraints. There’s no real free trial for individual users coming to the site, mainly because of the site’s freemium nature.
The site also hosts free Webinars. Greathouse had two great tips for optimizing Webinar participation and sales:
- Make the slides available for download so that attendees can listen without the sound on. This is crucial for teachers who are often working during lunch, or learning during nap time or study hall. This may make the Webinar obsolete for some, but having the different formats ensures that audience members who learn in different ways can all benefit from the content.
- Have a moderator during live Webinars to convert highly qualified prospects. SimpleK12 will do this by having a chat feature hosted on TitanPad, a separate platform (see screenshot below) during a live Webinar. These moderators will listen and answer attendees during the Webinar. Then at the end, they will make a seamless transition to a sales pitch, saying “Let me login and show you how to get the most of your membership, and will give you a lower price $177 if you join by midnight.” Greathouse reports this has been the site’s best conversion tactic.
Retention Tactics
SimpleK12’s retention rate for site licenses is between 50% and 60%, which is somewhat low for group sales and a B2B site. This is probably because there’s no automatic renewal.
Editor’s Note: While this is unusual, it’s somewhat necessary given SimpleK12’s target market, where school budgets and district funding can vary drastically from year to year. [again, why no auto-renew? What is the reasoning?]
Individual subscriptions have a 38% retention rate, which is also low. Werner is eager to add a “subscribe ’til forbid” system in order to improve this rate, but is having trouble switching all the users over.
However, SimpleK12 re-vamped their product two years ago. Before they were selling customized staff development to each district, and the retention rates dropped when they introduced a new business model.
The site’s best retention tactic is its member engagement tools, from badges and Bunny Bucks to forums and user-generated resources. We expect these tactics will help the site improve its retention rate quickly in the coming year.
Cross-Sells and Upsells
As mentioned above, the site cross-sells products, such as bunny slippers, t-shirts, Frisbees and other Schwag, which members can buy using Bunny Bucks.
A lot of the site’s content is available for one-off sale (such as a training module), but SimpleK12 will always try to upsell a full membership at check-out to anyone making a one-off purchase. This is a definite best practice that sites will similar content inventory should follow.
Upon sign-up, the site will often try to upsell a two-year subscription, offering a discount. Around 20% of prospects take this offer.
About Michael Werner and Lisa Greathouse
Michael Werner started InfoSource 20 years ago, when PCs were just making computer-based business training possible. InfoSource started with Word and Excel-based training, then graduated to disc-based training, until it eventually evolved into a corporate, online subscription-based business. The parent company covered a variety of industries, but felt most comfortable in the education space and thus, has decided to focus on that.
Werner’s biggest lesson has been the importance of marketing. “I’m a content person. I love content and creating content. You can get obsessed with that and forget the marketing and sales side. We tend to have way too much content and not enough marketing and sales to support. Great marketing with average content is better than great content with poor marketing. Otherwise you won’t be around for long.”
Lisa Greathouse joined SimpleK12 right out of college. “When I was in college, I had a vision to start company to move textbooks to digital format (this was before the iPad). I knew I had a lot to learn, and I wanted to get out of snowy Erie PA. I found this company in sunny Florida, and here I am six years later.”
Her biggest lesson learned has been to experiment: “You can’t always try to do what other people are doing. You have to take chances on what feels right for your market. I came in with MBA 101; people write articles on this is how you do this, and it’s great advice, but it’s a starting point. Don’t be afraid to take chances. Michael is great at letting me try different schemes, instead of sticking to traditional business model.”
Her advice to other subscription content professionals is to “really know your market.” “We have this fictional person — Debbie — our target customer. We spend a lot of time talking to a lot of teachers.”
Vendors & Technology
SimpleK12 manages a number of functions in house, from hosting the site and videos, to creating a customized CMS, to tracking and managing their affiliates. In addition, they use the following third-party vendors:
Webinars–GoToWebinar and Titan Pad
http://www.gotomeeting.com/fec/
http://titanpad.com/
Payment processing — 1ShoppingCart and Authorize.net
http://www.1shoppingcart.com/
https://www.authorize.net/
Email management — BLI Messaging which got renamed AlertSolutions. Also use GetResponse.
http://www.alertsolutions.com/
http://www.getresponse.com/
Customized landing pages–Wordpress
http://wordpress.org/
PPC Consultant –RhinoFish
http://www.rhinofish.com/
Marketing Consultant — Anver Sulieman
http://luntzsuleiman.com/aboutanver.html
Sponsorships sales –Agile Marketing
http://www.agilemarketing.net/
Insider Analysis
SimpleK12 has such a friendly and approachable brand, it’s hard not to like them from the moment you’re on their homepage. We applaud them for that, especially since their branding seems the result of extensive market research and a creative staff, as well as the use of customer personas, a definite best practice (companies selling across different job titles might want to have multiple personas). We also like that the site has been able to evolve its model over the years, by not only moving to a corporate site license model, but by trying and discovering new ways to sell group subscriptions (our favorite is their ability to leverage school administrators who don’t attend Webinars). Furthermore, we think the site is doing a great job of email marketing and using social media more adeptly than any other site we’ve profiled. Lastly, we love that SimpleK12 has used gamification and its own currency to promote user engagement!
There are some areas for improvement, most notable in retention and SEO. If it was using a WordPress CMS, we would recommend the site implement a WordPress plugin to augment SEO efforts. However, our SEO toolkit gives detailed instructions for how anyone can improve SEO manually. Regarding retention, SimpleK12 is right to consider a shift to auto-renewal. They should also begin mailing out renewal notices at critical times for budgetary decisions, perhaps involving their ambassadors. Also, the site should definitely start employing A/B testing of its home page and landing pages. The plethora of resources and topics, along with the many “extras,” makes for a cluttered look at times, and some A/B testing would help them optimize for conversions and retention.
